Four Beautiful Photos by Emanuele Siracusa - #fight66 [pics]

Emanuele contacted me on Facebook not long before my last fight and asked about photography opportunities at Loi Kroh. I told him that it was very casual there, and looked forward to meeting him. My husband and I took a look at his website thesiracusas.com and realized what a spectacular travel and street photographer he is. He is in Chiang Mai for the next few months with his wife and child (who I haven’t met yet), and I look forward to what else he might shoot. But these 4 photos from my last fight vs. Nong Em are beautiful. The fight video and blog post should be in shortly.

You can find his facebook page here to keep on top of what he’s shooting.

As a bonus look at this extraordinary photo of monks celebrating Loi Krathong at Wat Phan Tao in Chiang Mai, from his website:

You can support this content: Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu on Patreon

The Author Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

A 103 lb. (46 kg) female Muay Thai fighter. Originally I trained under Kumron Vaitayanon (Master K) and Kaensak sor. Ploenjit in New Jersey. I then moved to Thailand to train and fight full time in April of 2012, devoting myself to fighting 100 Thai fights, as well as blogging full time. Having surpassed 100 fights in 3 years here, my new goal is to fight an impossible 200 times in Thailand, as much as I possibly can, and to continue to write my experience.

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Boxing in a Mirror - Sparring Out of Control

Brain Science: Why Sparring Gets Out of Control – Neurology and Muay Thai

We all know the bro (or the female version) who says “Let’s go light” in sparring, and then whacks you. Or, when you get a hit in they suddenly step it up two notches in a way that seems inordinately ego-driven, like they’re trying to “win” at sparring. What’s up with these people? Don’t they know how to spar? It turns out that although there indeed may be all kinds of psychological reasons why people just hit back harder than they are hit – not understanding their own size, or just being a jerk – there also may be a

When are you ready to fight Muay Thai - sylvie

How Do You Know When You’re Ready to Fight Muay Thai?

A few months ago I wrote post titled Game Day: Why You Should Fight Muay Thai in Thailand. This is a follow up or “part two” to that post on the subject of how you know when you’re ready to fight, in Thailand or otherwise. When Are You Ready? Not long ago a fellow who I met through my Facebook page and who made it out to Thailand to train at a gym that is also in Chiang Mai came by Lanna to train with us. After a full session including sparring he started talking about how he expected to

The 80 Percent Fight - female Muay Thai in Thailand

The 80 Percent Fight – A Hidden Story Behind Western and Thai Match Ups

Any westerner fighting in Thailand has an interest in portraying their Thai opponents as being the best and fighting at the top of their capabilities. And, to be fair, we assume and hope that this is true in our own minds. We come here to train hard and fight hard, and from our understanding of fighting in the west we assume quite fairly that our opponents are doing the same. But in Thailand, things are very often not what they seem; perhaps especially when gazing with western expectations. My experience of fighting in Thailand started over 5 years ago now

Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu - training Muay Thai

Why Your Muay Thai Dreams Might Not Come True in Thailand – The Two Great Fears for Fighting

(above) my video introduction the common fight fears of gassing out and shin pain, the video below shows Den talking about what to do for fight conditioning Some Tough Talk One of the advantages of training non-stop in Thailand for so long is a sense of perspective I’ve gained on people who come with Muay Thai dreams. I’ve met maybe 100 people over the past year and a half who have come through the gym with serious aspirations to fight. They arrive very enthused, but less than a quarter of them actually do fight and none of them – not

Sarah Conner - Sacrifice - Body Muay Thai

Sarah Conner & My Egg Donation: The “Sacrifice” of Body For Muay Thai

In the world of athletics and motivational memes, the word “sacrifice” gets thrown around a lot. All the things that one must sacrifice in the name of greatness, the hardships of waking up to train, missing out on nights of drinking with friends… whatever. I know people use this word without truly dissecting the concept, it’s just part of sport-speak. But I don’t use this word because it means a lot to me. When I think of the word “sacrifice” I think of giving up something of immense value – sacrifice is painful, not unfortunate or just hard. Abraham willing

Sylvie's Tips - Muay Thai Tips, Techniques and Helps from Thailand

Sylvie’s Tips – Muay Thai Tips, Techniques & Helps from Thailand

This is a new feature I’m going to try my hand at. I’ve got a lot on my plate out here, but it feels like it would be a shame to waste some of the small technical Muay Thai know-hows I’ve run into, so I’m going to try to stop and film them in short segments when I come across a new one. Sometimes it will be something I’ve discovered in my own struggle to synthesize all the amazing technique that is surrounding me, but mostly I hope it is short pieces of instructions or help from those teaching

Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu - Waiting Before the Fight - Muay Thai

What the First Year of Fighting Means – a Husband’s Point of View

this space is Sylvie’s space, where she writes her record. But with the first year of fighting completed I felt I wanted to add my thoughts, as a husband. In part because Sylvie is fighting for all of us, a family. guest post, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu I’m a pretty quiet guy around the gym and at fights, so much so people tend to not get past the exterior. But when they do one of the things they ask me is “Do you ever get worried when Sylvie goes in there?” This is such a natural thing to ask a

Arjan Surat - Dejrat Gym in Bangkok - Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu

Arjan Surat of Dejrat Gym – 1 Hour Private | Coach of the Thai National Team

Join and Study my Muay Thai Library of Legends This is a full video of a private I took with Arjan Surat, Head Coach of the Thai National Team, and owner of the esteemed (but lesser known to the west) Dejrat Gym in Bangkok. I did a short review of the gym when I interviewed female fighter Kaitlin Young, and it was then that I met Arjan Surat for the first time: an absolutely extraordinary teacher and life-force of Muay Thai. The man is Old School-Old School, telling me that he’s been holding pads longer than I’ve been alive (he’s

Sataanmuanglek - high level Muay Thai clinch technique-w1400

Breaking Down Some Elements of Awesome Muay Thai Clinch Technique

Sataanmuanglek Numponthep – Magician A few days a go a clinch video swept across Facebook, featuring the young fighter Sataanmuanglek Numponthep just looking incredible in “man in the middle” training. This kind of training is very common in Thailand, and often can go for 40 minutes or more (rotating out the man who is in the middle) – it’s one of the reasons I moved to Pattaya to train at Petchrungruang, this kind of work. But Sataanmuanglek just looks spectacular in this clip. The very best clinch throw techniques are those where you almost can’t see where the trip came

Emma Thomas Female Muay Thai Fighter - Interview-w1400

My Interview With Female Muay Thai Fighter Emma Thomas

Surfing the Chaos I’ve known Emma for a few years now. We actually met through online communication and I forget that we didn’t actually meet each other in person until a little over a year ago. I really like Emma and recently I was scrolling through a feed of our private messages on Facebook in order to show something she’d sent me to my Thai friend and my friend remarked, “wow, you write so much! It’s like a book!” Yeah, we talk a lot. Which made me realize with surprise that I’ve not yet interviewed Emma. I’ve certainly thought to

Arjan-Pi-Bangkating-Sak-Yant-Chiang-Mai-Sacred-Tattoo-Sylvie Muay Thai Tattoo-w1200

Life Stages – My Sangwan Rahu Experience – Sak Yant by Arjan Pi Bangkating Chiang Mai

[Update May 2015: Here is my account of the Backward Facing Tigers I received next] above video: my thoughts on just coming out from the 2 hrs of tattooing my sak yant. As one can see, I was significantly affected by the experience, but was in good spirits. It is a lot to digest. What This Sak Yant Meant to Me People may not realize it from the fact that I post online and blog, and even sometimes write about very personal things, but I’m an extremely private person. And even though I have probably put more out there about

Sylvie’s Tips – Muay Thai Techniques

Sylvie's Tips - Improving Your Muay Thai Elbows Using a Wall

Sylvie’s Tips – Improve Your Muay Thai Elbows Using a Wall

Making Your Elbows (Hooks & Crosses) Fast, Direct and Accurate This is a pretty simple technique and you can find a wall anywhere, so we can mark this down as one of the most accessible tools there is. Basically, I have been alerted to the folly of how my arms launch away from my body when I throw strikes, which is detrimental to both power and control. Sagat is the one who really explained trajectory to me [<<watch that session to see what this philosophy of strking is about], showing how a wind-up is just wasted space, energy and time,

thanadet and the shape of the Long Clinch-w1400

For Clinch Purists – The Technique of Tanadet’s Long Clinch and the 9th Limb

This post is in the spirit of this site, showing things in progress, as if passing reading notes so others can think along (and even train along) with me. I’ve thought a lot about this clinch since first witnessing it about 3 years ago. I’ve finally gotten myself to the position where I can teach it to myself. I first wrote about Tanadet (Poda) 2 years ago. The extended film clip below Kevin made as a study film for me, so I could figure out just what it is that Tanadet was doing. If you want a very good sense

Sylvie's Tips Arm Position Angle on the Muay Thai Kick-w1400

Sylvie’s Tips – Arm Position on the Kick, A Different Arm Angle

a cross position and slash motion on the arm swing The Muay Thai Kick Arm Swing Angle One of the things you learn when you come to Thailand longer term is that there are many, many ways of doing something. You may have learned that there is “one” way, or been corrected away from a “wrong” way, and this is not necessarily a bad thing, but technique in Thailand is developed somewhat individually, over a long period of time, influenced by different styles and elements from trainers. It is not uncommon to be corrected in different directions by different trainers,

Muay Thai Low Kick - Where to Kick the Thigh - Sylvie's Tips

Sylvie’s Tips – Low Kick: Where to Kick the Leg – the Sensitive IT Band

Kick Where it Hurts This is another installment of Sylvie’s Tips where I seek to share some of the things my Thai trainers are teaching. The other day Kru Nu landed a couple leg kicks on my right (back) leg during padwork. He’s got a good low kick and his Thai students have really whippy, nasty low kicks as well. The first one hurt and all, but the second one – which was a good 10 minutes after the first – landed on just such the perfect spot, with just enough force, and while my weight was on it that

How to Avoid Kicking Knees or Elbows in the Basic Muay Thai Kick

This above is a little video help to Benjamin who wrote me about a basic problem he was having in sparring. It seemed like the best way to answer him was in a quick video. I try to help people who write in to me as best I can. Once I filmed it I realized that this is something a lot of others are probably having issues with. I know I still run into it after 3 years here, so I thought to turn it into a “Sylvie’s Tips” video. Hopefully it helps others. Benjamin asked about how his knee

Sylvie's Tips - Counter to the Wall of China-w800

Sylvie’s Tips – Counter to the Wall of China Block and More

n Sylvie’s Tips I try to capture on video various small techniques that I run into while training. The way that it happens in Thailand, things are seldom taught to you in the form of formal instruction, rather they come up suddenly in training and then are gone. I’m pretty shy, so it’s hard actually go around and request these things; I don’t want to stop everyone and have them repeat things for the camera. In this case though we arrived at O. Meekhun gym to find organized instruction being given to Phetjee Jaa and one of the boys named

Low Kick Counter - Round Kick Counter - Dieselnoi

Sylvie’s Tips: 2 Wicked Dieselnoi Knee Counters to Muay Thai Kicks [GIFs]

The Sylvie’s Tips feature is a collection of techniques and tips I’ve picked up in my time in Thailand, from some of the best trainers in the world. I’ve never seen these exact counters before, and they come from the greatest knee fighter in history, Dieselnoi, during my filming of a nakmuaynation.com private. You can read about that private here. Unique Knee Counter to Round Kick I’ve actually been on the receiving end of this knee to the hamstring a number of times, but only from my trainer, Pi Nu, during padwork. He thinks it’s hilarious and usually calls out boran!

Sylvie’s Tips: How to Cover Distance on Muay Thai Round Kick

After 45 minutes or so of sparring with Den yesterday he finally broke down for me what I was doing wrong with my attempts to land kicks on him. (I landed maybe 5 in that time, although I was able to affect him with my punches when I charged in with flurries; I’m much more comfortable with punches because of my balance, I think.) Den has told me before to shorten my kick because the loping round kick is too slow and easy to see coming, so he just moves out of the way of the kick and then counters

Different Kinds of Muay Thai Knee Techniques - Sylvie's Tips

Sylvie’s Tips: Different Kinds of Muay Thai Knees

In my Dieselnoi Instruction post I made a video demonstrating some of the different sorts of knees used in Muay Thai. I’m not an expert in any of these, but I felt it might be good to just present an overview as a single, “proper” knee does not so much exist in Muay Thai, and there are many different techniques used for different purposes. Sometimes the focus is damage done, or accumulating points, or even just making sure the knee is clearly visible to the judges. As I say in the introduction to the video, these are all variations on knees and,

15 New Techniques That Will Improve Your Muay Thai – From My Training in Pattaya

I learned a ton training with Sakmongkol in Pattaya for 7 weeks, as well in my time at Petchrungruang Gym. You can see my daily blog posts of my time with Sakmongkol here if you want to dig into the evolution of my lessons, the posts are pretty detailed with lots of video. Below are the lessons I learned, in particular the lessons or techniques I’m going to consciously work into my training at Lanna, now that I’m back in Chiang Mai. I’ll try to tell you why they were important for me and maybe they could help you, too.

Sylvie’s Tips: Den Demonstrates the “4” Block for Muay Thai and Boxing

Den Shows the “4” Block A Little Break Down of the “4” Block Den taught me this block a short while ago and it’s also very well utilized by Neung, who is a WBC boxing champion. Basically you use your back arm and fold it across your chin, so your elbow is right at the center to protect your nose and chin and your glove is at the opposite side of your head, protecting your ear and jaw. Then your front arm is the leg of the “4”, shooting straight out to jab or push on your opponent. Den isn’t

Sylvie’s Tips – Muay Thai Tips, Techniques & Helps from Thailand

Sylvie's Tips - Play Knees on the Bag - Pattaya Muay Thai

Sylvie’s Tips – How I Improved My Knee Bagwork | Rounds of Play Knees

“Play Knees” – Sylvie’s Tips video above The other day I put up a video of “play knees,” bagwork that Muay Thai legend Sakmongkol taught me at WKO, here in Pattaya. He was displeased with me merely doing counted, repetition knee drills, the traditional Muay Thai camp endless knees on the bag that everyone knows. (These are still good and useful, by the way, just for stamina.) He wanted me to do play knees, to move the bag around in fight simulation action and energy. It was something I’ve never seen before, but I did my best to adopt it.

Some of My Best Posts

The Importance of Violence in Muay Thai

I’ve written before about how Muay Thai and fighting, to me, isn’t “violence.” My argument was that I have experienced real violence, the above is the story of my rape as a child, and that the consent and preparation involved in fighting isn’t the same. There is, however, a flavor of violence in Muay Thai – it is, as my old boxing coach Ray Valez would say, “the hurt business” and ultimately any fighter pushing for the highest form of the art of Muay Thai has to embrace this. Yesterday there was a young woman at my gym, Petchrungruang, who

The Fighter and Unconscious Tension – Recognize and Release

I just had to do my annual visa run, which requires sitting in a van full of total strangers for the 11 hour drive up to the border with Laos, an overnight stay, then the 11 hour drive back down to Pattaya. It’s grueling. Sitting in a car or a plane for this number of hours takes a toll on anyone. It’s astonishing how tired sitting on your ass makes you. I’m not very social, so I always put as many hours of podcasts and audio books as possible on my player so I can leave my headphones in the

Mental Training - People Pleasing and the Fighter

How Many Fucks? Zero. The People Pleaser and the Fighter

Apologies to my younger readers, this post is laced with profanity. Sometimes profanity has a special power to describe things in ways other words can’t. The plastic stool underneath me is too far out from the actual corner and my body kind of tips backwards as my cornermen lift my legs into their hands and rub icy cold water on my thighs and shins. I try to balance myself on the ropes but it’s more awkward and I reposition my forearms to the tops of my thighs; the cold water is going over my head now, which feels nice because

Chiang Mai Best Female Fighting in the World

Why Chiang Mai Has the Best Female Muay Thai Fighting in the World

This article is about the flourishing Muay Thai of Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand, becoming the best female fight city in the country and very possibly in the entire world. No other city boasts such a complete native female Thai fight scene: it’s fed by side-bet (gambling) fights in the outlying provinces, stabilized by Sports Schools, hosted at a large number of local stadia (all of which allow women to fight in them) which hold fights every night of the week, and supported by the Thai Muay Siam media coverage. If you are a female Muay Thai fighter, this

Interview with IFMA’s Stephan Fox | Muaythai in the Olympics and More

Stephan Fox is the General Secretary of the International Federation of Muaythai Amateur (IFMA) and the Vice-President of the World Muaythai Council (WMC). He is a huge figure in the recognition and development of amateur Muaythai in Thailand, as well as international competition with both the IFMA and WMC. After 20 years of work, the International Olympic Committee has just given provisional recognition for possible inclusion in the Olympics – let me repeat that: 20 years of work for that, and Mr. Fox’s response is, “right on schedule.” above, the full 30 minute interview with Stephan Fox We cover a range of

The Secret to Great Muay Thai Padwork in Thailand – Get the Most Out of It

What follows is not authoritative, it is just the things I’ve gleaned in my nearly 5 years of full time training at my various gyms, and in traveling around and taking privates from some of the best in Thailand. You can get access to my growing Muay Thai library with legends for a suggested pledge of $5. I read a rant on Reddit that, despite its intense language, does open up that some people do get frustrated training in Thailand, finding a lack of instruction and padwork that be repetitive. I do believe there is no better place in the

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“This Is Business” | The Imitation Game, Playing to the Gamblers

Alex and Note are standing on opposite corners of the ring, wearing shinguards and gloves, hanging out like they’re about to do anything other than sparring. They’re totally relaxed, laughing, joking. Kru Nu is pacing around and there’s a buzz around the circumference of the ring while the remainder of the boys all takes their positions along the ropes as spectators and Goh – one of the padmen for the kids – is hollering for Chicken Man. Kru Nu squats down with his hands on the top rope, peering under the staircase and out into the chicken farm, the most likely

Female Fighters | Fighting Above Weight in Thailand & How to Win

First off, let me say it: weight, its not that big of a deal. There is a strong caveat to this, which is that it is a definite advantage, but so is height, or knowing the scoring system, or fighting since you were 10, or having a fight on your home turf, and so many other things. So while weight is always a potential advantage, it is just one among many possible advantages. You can beat people who have the weight advantage over you, just like you can with any of those other advantages. I know that in the West

Precision – A Basic Motivation Mistake in Some Western Training

read my guest post articles a Husband’s Point of View A Husband’s Point of View – Consider this a working theory. I’ve written about the uniqueness of Thai style training before, in The Slow Cook vs the Hack, and this article can be seen as something of an extension of that. But as Sylvie’s husband watching her progress through very earnest training and a hell of a lot of fighting, and seeing numerous westerners come through her Thai gyms, I’ve come upon something I think is pretty important. What led me to this is a very particular quality many serious

Guide to Muay Thai Gym Etiquette - Not Offend

Guide to Thailand Muay Thai Gym Etiquette – How to Be Polite

Below is meant to be a helpful guide, something that I wish I had when I first came to training Thailand. These are just things I’ve noticed in my 4 years of training and fighting here and are not hard and fast rules to follow. If you want to be polite in Thailand gyms, in a culture that is different than your own, these are just a few things to look for. There are of course a wide variety of gym experiences in Thailand, and things that are impolite in a small, family Thai-style gym might very well be common

Pitbull - Fear and Agression in Muay Thai

Fear of Escalation in Sparring and Training Aggression as a Skill

A lot of us feel that aggression comes with an “on/off” switch, and that we should be able to flick it back and forth based on context. Many of us who are learning Muay Thai struggle with aggression, perhaps because we don’t feel that we are “naturally aggressive,” and it’s frustrating to watch those who are seemingly naturally gifted with aggression succeed in ways that we don’t see in ourselves. But aggression isn’t natural, even if it does seem innate in some more than others. I contend that aggression feels natural to some due to having spent years cultivating it before they

Padwork with Daeng at Lanna – Dracula Guard (Long Guard Variation)

First a Little Bit About Daeng Daeng is one of the most fight-focused trainers I’ve trained with. When I was training at Lanna Muay Thai in Chiang Mai, it was Daeng who invested the most in diagnosing and fixing weaknesses in my fighting. He wasn’t my main trainer, but he’s a very good teacher and has a keen eye for finding how to improve on existing strengths and correct errors. I’d initially gotten a bit stuck with a technically brilliant but lazy and unmotivated trainer – that guy was a great trainer for some, just not for me – and Daeng

Arjan Surat of Dejrat Gym – 1 Hour Private | Coach of the Thai National Team

The Gendered Experience

Thai Clinch - Lanna Muay Thai - black and white

The Male Nature of Thai Clich – Play, Dramatization, and Domination

The Inherent Nature of Thai Clinch This video was shot about 25-30 minutes into a clinching session at the tail end of afternoon training. Initially, everyone jumped in to help Big with his clinch because he has some fights coming up, but by the time we get to this video everyone is working with “Godzilla,” who is significantly bigger than all the other boys and Den. They’re doing a “round robin” type drill with “last man standing” rules, so that two men are clinching and whoever gets thrown is “out” and whoever is still standing is still in, so the

Angie Trans Man Sparrring Muay Thai - Pattaya-001

The Petchrungruang Fight Simulator – Transgender Fighter Angie vs. Mirko

At Petchrungruang, there is sparring going on at any given moment in the afternoons. The little kids fly around the smaller ring with abandon, sparring for hours until they get tired and just stop. The older kids will match themselves up and play for a few rounds, or if they’re getting ready for a fight the sparring might be a bit more serious. Occasionally, my trainer likes to match two fighters up and put them in the center of the ring for a “mock fight.” We wear shinguards and gloves, but someone is assigned to be time-keeper and they ring an

Clinch Hell – Breaking Points, Crying and Growing Stronger

When Taking Pity Takes Too Much We have a new woman at the gym. She’s only trained a handful of weeks, ever, and will have her first fight at the end of the month. So Pi Nu is really putting her through the trials to get her ready and I suspect that part of his Draconian directives that she clinch everyday comes from him watching me have success with clinch over the past 1.5 years that I’ve been under his instruction at the gym. He watched me go from unable to unstoppable, so I think he’s become a real believer

Menstrual Taboos and Cultural Relativism – Being An Ally

This is a bit of a free form thought response to reading a very interesting article. I wrote a blog post recently on the role of menstrual taboo in Thailand limiting women’s access to the top stadia and restricting equality and possibilities in Muay Thai, called “Can Bleed Like a Man – Lumpinee, Muay Thai, Culture, Sexism and Meme.” A lot of responses to that blog post were positive and thoughtful, even those that disagreed with my thesis that traditions which view and treat a class or group of persons as unclean, corrosive or polluting are simply unsustainable. These views

The Panty Incident – Gender, Undergarments and Cooties in Thailand

I wrote this post a few years ago, probably in the first year that I was training and fighting out of Lanna Muay Thai in Chiang Mai. At the time there were a lot of cultural differences from the west, that are perhaps more emphasized in the conservative North, that were eye-opening to me. The superstition and downright fear of women’s undergarments was a big one, which is illustrated by this story I’ve called “the panty incident.” Enjoy. A few days ago I noticed a rogue sport-top bra (style, not really supportive) hanging on a drying rack at the gym.

Soidao and Jaeda - Rangsit Stadium - May 2000

Women in Lumpinee, Thai Female Fighters in the 1990s, Rangsit History

One of the more limiting things as a female Muay Thai fighter is that we have no real history, no archived past to attach ourselves to, to anchor our passion and propel us to greater achievements. We have the names and photos of western women with lots of belts, in recent times, and very few videos, but reach beyond a decade or so and the record of female Muay Thai just falls off into mist. And in terms of Thai female fighters, anything prior to 1998 is extremely obscure and subject to the dubious or incomplete aspects of oral accounts.

Paula Bronstein - Women of Thailand and the Bottom Rope-001

So What’s the Big Deal About Women and the Bottom Rope In Thailand?

photo credit above: Paula Bronstein at Getty Images Guest Post – A Husband’s Point of View There’s been some of recent conversation about the bottom rope, and the Thai custom that women not only pass under the rope when entering the fight ring, but also less well-known, that in some more conservative camps, that they enter training rings this way as well, so as to not disturb the protective powers of magic that consecrate the ring and everything that happens within it. One western coach took to Facebook to present a defiant rant that his female fighters would never go

Bad Feminist | All the Fighters That Inspire Me Are Men

I don’t have female role models. I don’t look at other female fighters and think, “I want to fight like her.” But I have strong examples of both that are men, and intellectually that makes me feel a little guilty. As a Feminist through and through, as someone who believes that women cannot afford to not support one another, that’s a shitty thing to admit: that I don’t look up to women as idols, people I want to be like. And if I’m being completely honest, I never have. I admire individual women and I’ve written at length about the political or

“Why This PTA Mom is Hooked on Muay Thai” Guest Post – Laurie Berenson

Laurie Berenson is a student of Casey VanBrookhoven in New Jersey, USA. While I’ve never met Laurie, she wrote to me through my Facebook Muay Thai page and it turns out we know and have trained with many of the same people (including Casey, who was a favorite sparring partner for me back in Jersey because, despite his being so much bigger than I am, he sparred hard and made me work for anything I landed). When I first heard from Laurie I was taken by how similar her seemingly-instantaneous affinity for Muay Thai was to my own. Once you

Female Bodies – What Inspires Me?

Form and Function and Sex: The Killer Butt Women’s bodies occupy a strange cross-section of form and function in the world of athletics. This is not to say that male bodies do not hold complex positions as well, but for many reasons the female form – due to its “natural” softness appealing to femininity and musculature of athleticism “naturally” signaling masculinity, leaving a razor-thin line between an athletic female body and a masculine female body – gets caught in the turbulent waters of looking good while performing well. Anyone who has followed my blog for a while (or who knows

Muay Thai Luck in Thailand | Talking With Angie

Angie’s beverage shop is on the side of a road that cuts between the very busy Thepprasit and equally busy Pattaya Tai roads. There are constantly motorbikes and cars wizzing past, occasionally pulling to the side to shout a drink order to Angie and then jet off somewhere for a minute before returning to pick up. Today it’s oddly quiet and tons of shops around Pattaya are closed, so the traffic is minimal and Angie is sitting with her back to the street. I’m facing her, seeing the slowness of the traffic and giving her a nod every now and

Lobloo Female Protection Groin Guard Review - Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu 8 limbs-w1400

The Lobloo Aeroslim Female Groin Guard – A Review | My Amazon Strap

The Lobloo Aero Slim Female Groin Guard inexpensive very well designed – light weight, simple, effective, comfortable could improve technique – groin confidence in clinch, kicks, knees free shipping, arrives fast I love the Lobloo female groin guard. For the most part, I think women don’t even wear groin protection because there are so few options for us – my friend Emma Thomas wrote about these nightmares here – btw, she’s getting one now too – and of those available very few are functional and/or comfortable…but the Lobloo is both. While I obviously like that this groin guard protects me

Company in a Male Space – Training with a Friend

The afternoons at Petchrungruang have been crowded lately. I’m sitting in a somewhat unusual spot between the two rings, rolling my wraps. I’m sitting here because my usual spot on a bench across the gym has already been usurped by a few Italians who train in the evenings; it’s a wrench in my routine, but a sublimely mild one. My friend Robyn is visiting from the US and will have a fight next week. She looks at me while we sit and adjust our wraps, “What do you want to work on today?” Robyn asks. I’m stumped. There are things

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Four Beautiful Photos by Emanuele Siracusa – #fight66 [pics]

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